Creating a common world through dialogue: reflections on Arendt and Nelson

Academic philosophy is increasingly criticised for being excluding and exclusive: a relatively small number of women and minorities work in philosophy departments. This article contributes to the debates around this issue by arguing that academic philosophy could learn from philosophical practice. The article offers reflections on a particular practice of Socratic dialogue, which defines itself as a shared undertaking. Socratic dialogue in the Nelson-Heckmann tradition is a philosophical investigation, based in experience and undertaken together. By relating the practice to the work of Hannah Arendt and in particular to Arendt’s notion of common sense or sensus communis I argue that the significance of philosophy as a shared undertaking is its ability to strengthen our sense of a common world.